The present invention relates to a sun visor for motor vehicles, or the like. The sun visor has a visor body, or a reinforcing insert that is inserted in a flexible, protective covering, that is developed as a substantially rectangular blow-molded body. The body has depressed corrugations extending across the opposite sides of the body and over the interior regions of the insert between the edge regions. The corrugations on one side of the insert are at least in part welded to the corrugations on the opposite side of the body.
Such a sun visor is described in German Unexamined Application for Patent DT-OS No. 14 30 197. The blow molding used there for the sun visor has a mirror which is clipped into a cutout. It also has corrugations on both sides extending in the blow molding itself parallel to the longitudinal direction of the mirror. A surrounding corrugation is also welded in the edge region of the mirror. Such blow moldings used for sun visors provide protection against injuries from impact since they are developed with full or substantially full surface. Full-surfaced bodies are relatively unstable, since the have merely a cushion-shaped construction. The corrugations provided in known sun visors can only partially compensate for this lack of stability since only in the region of the clip-in mirror can a surface of increased stability be obtained by the welded together surrounds corrugations of the two surfaces on opposite sides of the visor body. The resulting reinforcement, however, cannot assure sufficient stability in the case of sun visors which are fastened at one side thereof to a mount in the vehicle. Furthermore, the strength of a blow molding produced from themorplastic resin decreases greatly with an increase in the temperature to which the molding is exposed, which frequently occurs in a car during warm weather. In particular, during the summer, even in the middle latitudes, temperatures inside vehicles in direct sunlight of far above 50.degree. C. may occur. The plastic material of the blow molding softens, even if not completely. But, in any event, it loses its flexural strength. Despite various reinforcements of the blow moldings, this had led to permanent deformations of sun visors. In particular, sun visors having a single swivel mount sink at one end and sun visors having two mounts, such as swing mounts, sag in the center. This occurs particularly if the body of the sun visor additionally supports a load such as a make-up mirror, parking tag or receiving pockets for utensils such as eyeglasses, or the like. The permanent deformation of the visor takes place both when the sun visor is swung up and when it is swung down. In both caases, it is equally unpleasant, since it leads to unattractive sun visors with impaired function.
In automobile sun visors, the use of a reinforcing insert made by injection molding and developed as a lattice-work has already been attemped in order to remedy the above noted drawback. See, for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,163,579, assigned to the assignee hereof. In this case, the struts arranged in the lattice-work of the reinforcing insert are developed as tension struts and, starting from the mount, they move apart radially from each other toward the lower edge of the visor and toward the lateral frame region of the reinforcing insert, which is located away from the visor mount. Such lattice-work like reinforcing inserts, however, require a relatively thick cover padding of foam in order to satisfy safety regulations. In order not to exceed a predetermined thickness of the sun visor, the reinforcing inserts must be made relatively flat, and they therefore have only slight stability in the transverse direction. Furthermore, a sun visor having such a lattice-work reinforcing insert is of relatively complicated construction and is expensive to manufacture.